“Got my second qualifying ride and first metric in for the year at the annual  “Central Iowa Rock Road Endurance Metric” CIRREM race February 27th.  This was my third year participating and the weather was by far the best yet.  50 degrees at the start climbing to around 70.  Unbelievable for February, especially when you consider that it was about 8 degrees at the start of the race last year.  My goal was to make 4 hours 30 minutes, and I came close, but the legs started to cramp up about four miles from the finish and I had to back off quite a bit to avoid a complete meltdown. 

Still was able to take nearly 35 minutes off of my time from last year, which I was super happy about.  The road conditions were very good and the strong 25 mile per hour winds were generally at our backs for the last half of the race.  Beers and pork sandwiches after finishing at the Cumming Tap tasted great.”